APs Are Now Online: College Board's Transition From Paper To Digital
First, the SAT went digital; now it’s APs. A recent statement from the College Board shared that in May of 2025, twenty-eight APs will transition from a standard paper format to digital, using the Bluebook app.
For context, AP stands for Advanced Placement exams. These annual assessments are hosted by the College Board as a measure of high school students’ proficiency in a subject area. There are currently thirty-nine AP courses being offered—covering a myriad of fields, including art, history, language(s), math, music, science, and more. AP exams have been offered to high schoolers since the 1950s, undergoing several format and content changes throughout the last seventy years.
Of these changes, we’ve seen digital exams hosted by College Board before, when the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) became fully digital in March 2023. Many elements of the test-taking experience changed in digital SATs: the test became shorter, the reading and writing sections were combined, a Desmos calculator became permitted for the whole math section, and reading passages became shorter. However, the most notable change was the introduction of adaptive testing. While Module 1 stayed constant for all test users, Module 2 appeared at a different level for different users based on their responses in Module 1. Students have generally found that these digital exams are easier and less stressful than the traditional paper exams, primarily thanks to the flexibility they provide. On College Board’s end, it’s also more secure, which is the reasoning they provided for AP exams’ transition. However, the Bluebook app is notorious for functioning poorly, with a 1.5-star rating on the App Store. It also raises accessibility issues for students who may not have reliable devices or live in an area with poor internet.
We can anticipate similar benefits and drawbacks when taking digital APs. However, there are some additional benefits with digital APs past what was present in digital SATs. Based on College Board’s statement, most of the humanities APs will be switching to a fully digital format while STEM APs will be taking a hybrid form—with a digital multiple choice section and the free response section(s) on paper. For students taking APs that require significant portions of writing, this may allow for faster typing and more seamless information retrievement, a huge advantage. The physical section on STEM APs may be in order for math to be more clearly written and appropriately graded.
We await more information on the technical changes of APs. Particularly, some of the changes on the digital SAT such as a Desmos calculator or adaptive testing would undoubtedly have a drastic effect on the test taking experience. Students also noticed that the digital SAT was significantly easier, meaning the digital AP might be easier as well. It seems like, based on student’s reactions previously, digital APs may be less stressful and more flexible overall. We anticipate how this new test format will reshape AP courses in the future and how students will perform with the changes this year.